The making of Fern Lake Township . . .




Time to put stairs on the outside of the buildings for access to the second floor shops. These stairs are all being made pretty much the same. I measured the height from the ground to the second floor, and made a paper template that height. I traced around it on the foamcore to make both halves of one staircase. The Stairs rather narrow and steep, but otherwise they'd stick out way past the fronts of the buildings.





I made the stair treads for each step a little wider than the step so they aren't quite as narrow as before. I also cut off the back triangle of each stair piece because I like how open it looks.





Here is a staircase attached to the side of one building, with a landing at second floor height. I'll only actually attach the staircase to one building in case I need to move buildings around (which is a good probability).





This is a back and front view of the staircase that goes between buildings 1 & 2 (but only attached to building 1.) Seeing that the stairs are sandwiched between two walls, I'll only need a really simple railing along each wall.





This is the beginning of the stairs and landings for the big apartment building. The stairs are made the same as the earlier ones, but have to be attached to landings for each floor. This one is not going as quickly or smoothly as the others! I have to make sure each level is the right height for each floor of the building (which of course, are not too exact).





On the left is the bottom porch, to get to the 1st floor apartment, and the stairs to get to the 2nd floor apartment. I had to make the landing big enough for someone to walk past the first floor apartment and get to the stairs. On the right is the whole thing with the 2nd floor landing in place, as well as the stairs to the 3rd floor. This thing is not too sturdy.





This is the whole staircase contraption in place. It will need railings of course, but now each tenant gets their own porch or balcony. I still need to put the steps in place to get onto the lower porch, but I want to let all of this dry nice and firm for a while. I don't know yet if or how I'll attach it to the building, maybe some little velcro dots. I'm glad only one building needed something like this. Would have been easier to give them an elevator, I think.